Ste Amandine
Yesterday's weather: Thunder, followed by grey skies, followed by thunder, followed by rain, rain, rain, rain.....
Mr Blumenthal's baked beans turned out very nicely thank you. OK, so I didn't follow the recipe to the letter, otherwise they wouldn't be finished until August but even taking a few short cuts they worked out very well. I personally would add a little more Worcestershire sauce and tabasco sauce than Mr B's recipe but they still were very nice on toast yesterday lunch time. For the uninitiated, Heston Blumenthal is a British chef who is interested in taking food to it's absolute limits. He is self taught and experiments with amazing taste combinations. He has won three Michelin stars and his restaurant has been runner up 'Best Restaurant in the World' for the last three years.
We had a super dinner last night. We are fond of Far Eastern cookery and we had two lovely dishes from Madhur Jaffrey's Far Eastern Cookery, a book based on her 1989 television series (how long ago???) It's one of our favourite books, we haven't been disappointed with any of the recipes in that one. Those of you who know us will know our collection of cookery books, we had a cull before we moved out here but still have a bookcase and a half, and I'm collecting yet more recipes all the time. I've recently discovered lots of really interesting cookery blogs (well, it was wet yesterday and Jon was watching the Tour de France - more on that later), and I've got a collection of recipes that I've taken from various magazines in the past. What with all the novels, dictionaries, DIY and gardening books, I'm surprised this house isn't collapsing under the weight of paper.
Le Tour
Yes, the Tour de France started yesterday in England. What's that all about? Shouldn't they rename it the Tour de France et Angleterre? I was amazed that it was 230 km from London to Canterbury, last time we did that trip it was only about 80 miles which, even with my lousy maths, doesn't come to 230 km.... It's actually very exciting because the Tour is coming here this year to our little corner of France. On Friday 27th July it will be passing quite near to our house on the leg from Cahors to Angouleme. Cahors itself is already gearing up with various events planned for the days leading up to the stage and the route will be lined with people for hours ahead of the actual race. These people are mad; they will take their picnic tables and chairs, the full four course French lunch with wine, and all for a few seconds viewing men in skin tight shorts on bikes.
I was wondering what the attraction was until I wrote that last sentence. Hmm, where did I put that picnic basket?
PS - this was written by Sue, not Jon!!!
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2 comments:
You could give them some of your baked beans on the way through to give them a hand up the hill!
'It's an ill wind..' and all that!
We had a particularly nice meal at Heston's [we're on first name terms, of course] restaurant @ Bray - The Hind's Head. A bit pricey, but it was a present so I wasn't paying.
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